In order to be called an outdoorsman, you must also be a conservationist. This includes using the best practices for improving the environment and the animals that live within it. It has been proven that baiting can spread disease within the animal population. The reason for this spreading of disease is that several animals can eat off of the same bait pile, which would be the equivalent of several people drinking out of the same glass of water. If one person that drinks out of the glass or one deer that eats off a bait pile is sick, every person or animal after them runs the risk of getting sick. Mr. Bestul was not opposed to baiting for ethical reasons, but environmental ones. Before anyone attacks an article on this website and associates it with a PETA movement, they need to make sure they fully understand the message the author is trying to portray.

IMO, Bestul's rational for unifying against baiting is very narrow-minded. I also believe that he misrepresents the use of feeders as "bait piles". There is a HUGE difference in a timed feeder verses a pile of grain laid out on the ground. I can't speak for all states (locations), where baiting (feeders) is legal, but I can speak for Texas and Mexico and can shoot holes in all 7 of his "reasons" for unification...
1)With a timed corn feeder, a hunter can and usually does see more whitetails during daylight hours. That's the point of having timers.
2)Deer still have to travel to find food even after feeding at a feeding station. The amount of corn spun from a feeder is not intended to "feed" the deer. It's intended to "attract" whitetail. If your readers (or Bestul) have ever hunted the Hill Country of Texas, then they/he would realize that it would take barrels and barrels of corn to feed 20 - 30 whitetail that may visit an area where a feeder is located. Note, after the corn from the feeders has been eaten, those same deer can be seen hundreds of yards or more in almost every direction from the feeder, browsing on the natural vegatation.
3)Apparently the "proved" link between baiting and bovine TB in whitetails has not be adequately substantiated. I can provide Bestul with a long list of biologist's name that he can speak to about their concerns regarding "concentrating deer near a pinpoint food source". In fact, many biologist in Texas, on many prominent ranches help implement supplemental feed programs which involves feed stations where...YES, deer are concentrated near a pinpoint food source.
4)Contrary to Bestul's reason, having corn feeders helps us be better managers. For the betterment of our ranch, we have a strict harvest program that requires we hunters to take a perviously determined amount of doe and bucks based on our biolgist's accessement of many variables pertaining to the overall health and age structure of the deer herd. A feeder is a aid tool to accomplish our harvest requirements because it helps "concentrate deer near a pinpoint ATTRACTANT source" so that we can better judge overall health, age and buck-to-doe ratios on our hunting properties. Put this all together and you come up with a property that is better suited for healthier whitetail because you increase the carrying capacity of the land by removing deer.
5)The battle lines are drawn by those that choose to fight that battle. If it is legal, do it. If it is not legal, don't do it. If you prefer to hunt over bait, hunt where it is legal. If you prefer to not hunt over bait, then hunt where it is not legal or, simply, don't hunt over biat, legal or not. It's more about choices than it is about ethics.
6)Personally, I'm not concerned with what the "general populace" thinks. If I truly cared, I wouldn't wear my camouflague in public, display my hunting stickers on the windows of my truck or haul tons (literally) to my hunting property on my trailers for ALL to see. I'm proud to be a hunter and don't believe in the politicaly correct actions or sterile fancy phonetics that some people use to cover up something they should be proud of.
7)Even though Bestul attempts to exclude Texas in reason #8, he does include my state when he begs the question, "So what?". To look at the big picture and the long term effects, bagging "slightly" fewer deer each year will equate to more deer feeding off the land and slowly encroaching on the maximum carrying capacity of the land. Tell me this, Mr. Bestul, how is healthier for the deer if there's not enough food to eat? How is it better for the hunters if their game is unhealthy because they are starving? You may but I DO NOT see this as "better hunting".